


Let's Hurt Tonight

by Anyanka77



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 11:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9653996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anyanka77/pseuds/Anyanka77
Summary: I needed closure dammit!Missing scenes from S4E3 so... spoilers...Comments appreciated ☺Over 500 views in less than 12 hours makes a girl feel pretty special... please feel free to peruse my other works.





	

“Well you gave her what was looking for-- context.”

 

“Is that good?”

 

“It’s not good it’s not bad, it is what it is.”

 

* * *

 

She ran her finger over her lip, rocking the phone in her hands in front of her. She moved her finger and took a steadying breath. She brought the phone close, her mouth almost touching it and whispered. “I love you.” She closed her eyes and took a shaking breath, putting the phone down and covering her mouth hearing his shocked gasp. She stared at it, unsure of what she had just done. She let the phone come back to her ear finally, “Sherlock?” she whispered, but the line was dead. He was gone. 

 

Her face collapsed in pain as she fought the urge to throw the phone across the kitchen, her fingers curled around it, squeezing it until it could have bruised her palm, before releasing a slow breath and setting it on the counter. She stared at the counter, the phone, her half prepared tea.

 

He’d said it twice. 

 

She shook her head and quickly scrubbed the tears from her eyes, angry that they had welled there, before returning to making her tea. Numb.

 

She had told him it was a bad day but he couldn’t have known. Why would he? Why would he care if he did know? He hadn’t deduced, known, or cared that she had been having a lot of bad days lately. So many that she was seeing someone, someone to help with the loss and grief that had become so much a constant in her life that she didn’t know how to process it anymore. That she had become slightly colder, harder, for having known him, John, Mary. He had John to worry about. She had John to worry about. There were more important things than her emptiness. She’d confessed that much to the kind faced if seemingly useless woman who she had employed to listen to her problems. Confessed that she cared but was finding it harder and harder to handle the pain, the seeping, cold, dark pain that was knowing them. She was selfish in her need to push that out and away. Today had been the day that her therapist had told her she had to let go, to let herself be free, that her pain was valid and real and she could not be the support others needed if she was not able to support herself. 

 

It had been hard to swallow and had followed her home. 

 

Then there was this.

 

He had said it twice.

 

This had been a bad day. The wrong day.

 

Her eyes drifted back to the phone, her hand shook as she picked it up and sent a text before she had a chance to second guess herself. 

 

“Never call again. Please.”

 

* * *

 

It felt like it had been weeks when he turned up at John’s door. Eurus was situated, his parents informed, all of the small problems that concluded this entire exhausting affair. He hadn’t slept, really slept in days. He knocked gently on the door and let out a relieved sigh when John simply opened the door in silence, Rosie on his hip, moving out of the way to let Sherlock in. They remained in the silence for a while, John setting Rosie to doze softly on her mat on the floor as he left the room to make some tea. Sherlock watched her small chest rise and fall with peaceful ease, he envied her peace and wondered if he’d ever slept like that, if he ever again could sleep that peacefully. Her face was smooth and slack, nothing to crease her forehead or purse her lip. He thought briefly in that moment that she looked like her mother. He'd seen that same serenity on Mary’s face twice. Christmas and her last moment above ground. He wondered briefly if his face became that soft mask of peace when he slept off a high. When his mind was that wonderful void and he let himself succumb to the quiet. He would be lying to himself if he didn't admit that after all they had endured, he longed for that quiet.

 

Thankfully John returned with two cups of tea, breaking him out of his reverie. “God, I wish I could sleep like that.” John mused as he settled into his chair, running his hand over the back of his head in a half-hearted attempt to relax. Sherlock noted the heavy dark bags under his friend's eyes, the weight of exhaustion and grief aging him. This had all aged them both so much.

 

“Have you slept?” he asked and John let out a small laugh.

 

“Aren't I the one who is supposed to ask you that?”  They both smiled briefly, a small respite from the sad weariness. “I'm guessing your answer is the same as mine.” 

 

“I’m better equipt. You should go try to sleep. I'll keep an eye.” He gave a small nod toward the blissful bundle on the floor. 

 

“Yeah, thank you.” He pulled himself from the chair and stretched out a soft crack in his back before heading across the room. He was nearly out of the door when he saw and remembered the bag on the side table, “Right, yeah, Lestrade found your phone.” He carefully tossed the bag over to Sherlock before heading to his bed. 

 

He pulled out the phone and pressed it on, wondering if it had any life left in it. It did not.  He casually tossed it on the couch beside him, his leg bouncing now with a new found realization and frustration. The call had come from his phone. That call. 

 

He had pushed that moment down as deeply as he could when he had had to keep fighting on. Buried deep in a sub basement of his mind palace, far away from where he would stumble upon it. He'd pushed so far down that he had not thought for days about what possibly could have happened after the call. She was alive, but he had hurt her so deeply. The pain and rage flashed through him. He had no choice but to hurt her, really ,deepl y hurt her. It was unforgivable and all he wanted now was her forgiveness. 

_ “You say it. Go on. You say it first.” Her eyes squeezed shut in pain. So much pain. He lost himself in it for a moment. _

_ “What?” _

_ Her eyes lifted and she shook, “Say it.” Sorrow clouded her face, “Say it like you mean it.” _

_ “Final thirty seconds.”  _

_ His eyes closed and he spoke, “I-” He looked up and saw the tears trapped in her lashes. “I love you.” He didn’t mean it. Why didn’t he mean it? She moved the phone in front of her mouth, a soft sigh, she knew he didn’t mean it. Why didn’t he mean it? He should mean it. It was the truth. “I love you.”  She still wasn’t sure he meant it. “Molly?” He held his breath, she was going to hang up. Oh god she can’t hang up. “Molly, please.” _

_ He could feel himself falling apart as the seconds ticked past, her pain coming through the screen and hanging over the room like a heavy wet sheet of winter rain. “I love you.”  _

_ She meant it and she was gone.  _

 

He charged around the living room as quietly as he could, looking for a charger for his phone, he knew John was the type to keep an extra around somewhere. He rummaged and ransacked until he found one in the hall table drawer. He sat down next to the outlet and quickly plugged it in, pressing the on button and waiting. He stared at the phone trying to will it back to life. He needed to see what happened after she was gone. He hadn’t realized he had been holding his breath until the screen came alight and he sighed. He hesitated a moment once the phone had booted, his finger hovering over the messages, the small red one making him suddenly nervous. He pushed finally let his finger come to the screen his face turning hard as before he hurled the phone across the room. 

 

The message was days old.

 

* * *

 

She had not left her flat in days. She didn’t want to risk seeing him. This had made her that girl. The girl who couldn’t stand the thought of seeing the boy. The boy who hadn’t called.

 

She was coming out of the shower, wrapped in her robe and getting ready to settle in with another glass of wine and the book she had been actively not reading for days. 

 

She started when she walked past the door and could hear motion outside. It was late. No one came over late. 

 

He softly knocked on the door, sensing she was there, he softly called, “Molly?”

 

She pressed her forehead to the door, unaware that he was mirroring it on the other side. She was barely audible. “Go home, Sherlock.”

 

He let out small, almost desperate, chuckle, “I don’t have a home, Molly. There’s so much I don’t have anymore, Molly. Please let me in.”

 

“I can’t.” Her hand came to the knob and rested lightly on it as she squeezed her eyes shut. Taking a deep breath and finally asking. “What happened?”

 

His hand rested on the doorknob, before he let it slide through his fingers and turned to slide down the door, resting his back against it. “I have a sister.”

 

She stepped back, confusion washing over her face. “I don’t see ho-”

 

“She was dangerous, institutionalized, I didn’t know. She came for us, Molly.” 

 

She knelt down by the door, resting her hand against it, feeling his head on the other side. “How?”

 

He didn’t know how to start, “Baker Street is gone. She trapped us. She told me you were going to die.”

 

Her hand fell to her knee. “You didn’t mean it.” She stood and turned.

 

He stood hearing her, his fist landing on the door. “Molly!” She stopped and turned back to the door. “Open the door-- Please?” He stared at the knob.

 

She blinked back the tears, reaching forward to turn the lock before she walked to the kitchen. 

 

He shuddered back the small bulb of dread that he’d been holding in his mind when he heard the lock. Opening the door slowly and following her.

 

She sat at the kitchen table, holding her robe closed, her hair still wet and hanging in soft damp locks around her freshly scrubbed face. His breath hitched a moment and he couldn’t speak. “Molly I-”

 

Her face was hard and cold, her eyes glassy with the tears she was holding back, “Tell me you didn’t mean it. You can’t have meant it.”

 

He sat down across from her. “I didn’t, I couldn’t, right? I don’t mean things like that. That’s not how I am wired.”

 

She quickly swiped the back of her hand at her face to rid her eyes of tears. “You’re not. You mean it, you love so many people, Sherlock. John, Mrs Hudson, your brother, even if you pretend you don’t. You love so much Sherlock. You just don’t love me, not the way that I need you to love me and that’s why I can’t-- I can’t be around you anymore Sherlock.” 

 

He was at a loss for words again, twice in one conversation, it was irritating. He finally whispered his words rushing out freeform, “I don’t know how, Molly. I am clever and willful and stubborn and rude. I’ve had to be because I don’t know people go through life with all these feelings. I’ve tried, I am trying Molly, but look what it does. I love John and I killed his wife. I love Mrs Hudson and I destroyed our home. I love Mycroft and we have lied to each other and slowly tried to kill each other for decades. People I love get hurt, Molly. I love you and Eurus made me destroy yo-” 

 

“Sherlock.” He looked up and his heart clenched at her tears. “Say that again.”

 

Confusion, “I love you and Eur--’ He stopped when she stood, crossing quickly to him.

 

“Why do you love me. Tell me why?” her arms came to fold over her chest.

 

He stood and looked deeply into her eyes, speaking slowly, “You’re clever, just as clever as me, but you will never hear me say it again. You are always there. Always. When I am at my lowest and there’s no bottom, there is always you. You keep me honest, and honesty is not something that has been a constant in my life. You see through me and force me open. You scare me Molly Hooper, because you make me want to try so hard and when I fail, I am failing you. I don’t know what it is. It is infuriating and it hurts and I don’t know what I would do if you stopped seeing me. It would be taking my heart.”

 

She was slowly shaking her head, looking at her feet. It was all wrong, he knew he had done it all wrong. “That’s why I love you Molly. Because losing you would break my heart.”

 

He reached up and let his finger curl under her chin, lifting her eyes back to his,“I love you, Molly.”  His thumb slid slowly over her cheek to wipe her tears and he leaned down to give her a gentle kiss just at the corner of her mouth, whispering “Please, Molly. Say it.” 

 

“I love you.”

 

* * *

  
  
As the weeks passed they worked to rebuild. To rebuild Baker Street, to rebuild life, connections, and family. They did it together, he was focused and determined and she was the solid ground, the ballast when the world tried to tip them over the edge. They worked to rebuild that love that they had not realized was there for so very long. 


End file.
